Video: McCain Faced Hostile Crowd At Immigration Town Hall Meeting

Senator John McCain held a town hall meeting on immigration reform and by all accounts the Arizona crowd was pretty hostile.

During a heated town hall gathering in the Phoenix suburb of Sun Lakes, McCain said the border near Yuma is largely secure, but he said smugglers are using the border near Tucson to pump drugs into Phoenix. He said immigration reform should be contingent on better border security that must rely largely on technology able to detect border crossings.

McCain said a tamper-proof Social Security card would help combat identity fraud, and noted any path to citizenship must require immigrants to learn English, cover back taxes and pay fines for breaking immigration laws.
“There are 11 million people living here illegally,” he said. “We are not going to get enough buses to deport them.”
Some audience members shouted out their disapproval.

One man yelled that only guns would discourage illegal immigration. Another man complained that illegal immigrants should never be able to become citizens or vote. A third man said illegal immigrants were illiterate invaders who wanted free government benefits.

McCain urged compassion. “We are a Judeo-Christian nation,” he said.

Via Hot Air, here’s a local news video showing clips of McCain getting kind of snotty and sarcastic in response to questions from constituents. When asked about the fence he previously demanded he mockingly pointed to a map saying “It’s not a fence? It’s a banana. We’ve put up a banana.” Later he chided the reporter for wanting to report there was some sort of problem at the meeting. (Be sure to follow the Hot Air link for news on how there has been an increase in activity along the border as lawmakers work out their amnesty plans.)

McCain must be too shy to point out that Congress appropriated monies to finish the South border fence with cameras, increased port security and inspections, and the hiring of 18,000 additional border security guards. BenghaziØ redirected money for those programs to his fancy programs, effectively ending border security enhancement. The arming of drug cartels was funded with Stimulus money for FAST AND FURIOUS GUNRUNNING.

The original 10/2006 Secure Fence Act provided for 700 new miles of double-layer reinforced pedestrian and vehicular fencing along five specific sections of the Southern-Southwestern border called Secure Border Initiative (SBI) and Secure Border Initiative Tactical Infrastructure (SBI TI) for communications, computer monitoring, roads, and lighting. This was in addition to maintenance of legacy fencing in urban areas to deter drug smuggling and human trafficking. The incremental hiring of 6,000 additional CBP agents to the existing 12,000; the use of four predator surveillance drones along border ports. However, when Congress changed 1/2007, bureaucracy took over. A new CBP Fence Lab was needed to determine which type of prototype fence best suited the area; environmental assessments and evaluations for land and habitat damage / alternative routes; Buy American Act added high project costs to use American steel for the fence; the USACE contracting a supply-chain management program and union labor in no-bid contracts that used unskilled workers instead of using CBP or DoDefense workers as had been done in the past; a new SBInet development program to use sensors, radar, cameras, and DRONES to monitor ports of entry was shelved over PRIVACY CONCERNS. The Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Bill FY2008, not passed until 12/18/2007, gutted $3 billion in appropriations for security, redirected the money to earmarks in discretionary spending, left it up to DHS to determine what effective security is, removed the ban on sanctuary cities, provided money for lawyers to represent illegal aliens, and required construction to be completed and end 12/31/2008. BenghaziØ renamed the open borders program Border Security Fencing Infrastructure and Technology (BSFIT) in 2009 and redirected appropriations. SBInet “virtual fence” was scrapped for a new program to be developed by DHS—DRONES in 2013 to be used on legal residents without privacy concerns.